Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

A feisty single mother is determined to care for her troubled son in ‘Mommy.’

A young British soldier is out of his depth on the mean streets of Belfast in ‘ ‘71.’

‘A Most Violent Year’ focuses on 1981, statistically one of the most crime-ridden in New York City’s history.

Painter Margaret Keane works in obscurity while her husband takes credit for her work in ‘Big Eyes.’

Jennifer Aniston plays a woman facing her painful past in ‘Cake.’

An avalanche in the French Alps turns a family’s life upside down in ‘Force Majeur.’

Wealthy John du Pont recruits wrestlers to help form an Olympic team in ‘Foxcatcher.’

An Israeli woman struggles to finalize a divorce in ‘Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem.’

‘Hermitage Revealed’ reveals the human stories behind one of the world’s greatest art collections.

A liaison with a handsome stranger brings a curse to a young woman in ‘It Follows.’

The owner of an auto repair shop in Russia fights to preserve his way of life in ‘Leviathan.’

Jazz, ballet and the art of Matisse are featured in ‘Matisse From Tate Modern & MoMA.’

The lavish period drama ‘Mr. Turner’ tells of the life of 19th century painter J.M.W. Turner.

A linguistics professor struggles with a devasting diagnosis in ‘Still Alice.’

Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones travel the harsh Nesbraska Territories in ‘The Homesman.’

‘The Imitation Game’ tells of a British mathematician who cracked a Nazi code. A woman embarks on a frantic race to save her job in ‘Two Days, One Night.’

‘The Theory of Everything’ is based on the memoir of Jane Hawking, wife of brilliant astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. A journalist meets ‘Citizenfour,’ who turns out to be whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Not far from ‘Timbuktu,’ a cattle herder and his family live peacefully until their destiny abruptly changes.

A young drummer deals with a possessive teacher in ‘Whiplash.’

‘Wild Tales’ offers six hilarious stories of revenge.

Jim Brown uses a walking plow and team of horses; his business Farmer Brown’s Plows supplied a plow as a prop for the movie ‘The Homesman.’

TUNKHANNOCK – Keep an eagle eye out for the plow.

That is, if you happen to catch Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones in a covered-wagon flick during the Dietrich Theater’s Spring Film Festival, watch for the farm-equipment scenes, because that’s where an old-time plow owned by Jim and Linda Brown of Tunkhannock will appear.

“Their local plowing company trained the people in the movie how to use the plow and make it look like they knew what they were doing,” said Ronnie Harvey, the assistant general manager at the Dietrich who chose “The Homesman” and 21 other movies for the festival, which is set for April 10 through April 30.

There’s a local connection in the movie “Foxcatcher,” too, because Lackawanna Trail High School grad Keith Gavin used his wrestling expertise to help make the story of 1988 Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz more realistic.

What else is Harvey especially eager to see?

“Whiplash” is the story of a drummer and the overly possessive music instructor who uses force and basically torture to get the music out of this boy. At times his hands are bloody from playing so hard,” Harvey said. “People who have seen it say it is one of the most intense movies they have ever seen.”

If you haven’t already seen Best Picture nominee “The Imitation Game,” Harvey said, here’s your chance. “So many movies show World War II being fought on the front lines. This movie’s about people behind closed doors trying to crack the ‘enigma’ code to try to stop the war. Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) basically stopped the war and nobody knew about it until just recently. But he was persecuted for being homosexual and he ended up committing suicide. It’s sad to think about what he could have done if people’s prejudice hadn’t been in the forefront.”

While the Dietrich usually doesn’t run horror films — during festivals or ever — Harveys said “It Follows” was worth making an exception.

“The buzz is so strong,” he said. “I’m hoping people step out of their comfort zone to see it. It’s about a girl who has sex with someone who has a curse on him. Now an entity is following her and the only way to get rid of it is to pass it on to someone else. It’s not your typical blood and guts and slashing horror. The reviews from critics are through the roof.”

The opening night gala will feature “Wild Tales,” which Harvey described as six “uproariously over-the-top, wacky” tales of revenge; and “Still Alice,” the poignant tale of a professor enduring the early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. “They’re very different from each other,” he said.